The absorption spectra of the first allowed valence transition of cyclopentadiene and cyclopentadiene-d6 were analyzed. The long vibrational progression was shown to be a progression in predominantly the C=C stretching coordinate. The molecule was deduced to be significantly elongated along the C=C bonds in this excited state. Its excited state lifetime was shown to be 35 fsec and to increase linearly with energy. Superexcited states of ethylene, between the first ionization potential and 1060A, were shown, by an analysis of the simultaneously obtained absorption and ionization spectrum, to couply strongly to the excitation continuum and to photodissociate more rapidly than the molecule ionizes into the continuum. The best random phase quantum mechanical calculations of the one and two photon resonant intensities to the n=3 Rydberg states of acetone were demonstrated, by experimental measurement, to be incapable of accurately reproducing the experimental intensities.